


Worth The Risk

by tiger_in_the_flightdeck



Series: Let Him Be My Master Elsewhere [2]
Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: BDSM, BDSM Scene, Bath Houses, Bratty Holmes is Bratty, Caning, Dom John Watson, Established Sherlock Holmes/John Watson, M/M, Sub Sherlock Holmes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-02
Updated: 2015-11-02
Packaged: 2018-04-29 15:35:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5132894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tiger_in_the_flightdeck/pseuds/tiger_in_the_flightdeck
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Holmes is frightened that Watson is being too open and eager with their relationship on the pages of his stories, and Watson tries to stop a sub drop before it begins. Upset and afraid, Holmes is still having trouble properly expressing what he wants. Lucky for him, Watson is much more intelligent than he thinks he is. </p>
<p>A fill for my Halloween Trick or Treat Fest on tumblr.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Worth The Risk

**Author's Note:**

> I just really wanted to have fun playing with the concept of Worth The Wounds. This originally started out as a 200 word ficlet.

The case had been a particularly difficult one for Holmes. Not in terms of the effort he needed to exert in order to solve it, but rather the victim had struck a chord with him.

A soldier, caught in the midst of a scandal, back to the wall. Even with my limited intelligence, I could see the thoughts dark and worried behind Holmes’ eyes each time he glanced at me as we paced the room.

“I think we are done here, Doctor.” he murmured eventually, and my head snapped up in concern.

Over the past several months, we had carefully worked out a series of words and phrases to signal Holmes’ needs when we were with others. None of the police constables or inspectors would think it out of place that he was calling me by my title, but I knew by now that it was his way of saying that he needed me, and he needed me _now_.

“The bathhouse on Northumberland?” I murmured softly while tucking his hand into the curve of my elbow. His fingers were trembling as they clutched at my sleeve.

Holmes was already raising his hand to flag down a hansom before he even bothered to nod. I unwound my scarf and wrapped it around him, the only amount of physical comfort I could give him until we were in private. Holmes slipped his fingers under it to toy with his throat.

Twenty minutes later found us paying for a private stall in our usual bathhouse. I was handed the key that would give us the privacy we needed. The stall was already stocked with supplies, but I gathered them up and set them in the basket in the corner in favour of our own items.

“Holmes, you know I would never do something so foolish as that man.” I reassured him and set down my Gladstone. Flicking the latches I opened the case. One side held my medical supplies and things I might need to help Holmes on cases. The other side was concealed with a strapped down flap of leather. I peeled this back to expose the compartment. Lashes and collapsible canes and anything else I felt would help him in moments like this. While I was selecting a few things, I heard the whisper of fabric as Holmes shed his clothing behind me.

“I’ve read the stories you publish,” he snapped with a wavering voice. Holmes bundled his clothes into a ball and thrust them into the corner on top of the basket. I turned around just in time to see him forcing his hands to unclench. “‘His face flushed and darkened…’” he muttered.

“Excuse me?” I wasn’t used to Holmes speaking to me with such a tone when he was so obviously in need of comfort.

Holmes dragged his finger down the side of his throat from the hollow behind his ear to his collarbone. “‘His long, sinewy neck…’”

“Holmes, I don’t understand what you-”

“‘Purely animal lust?’” he almost shouted at me before I realised he was quoting my own work. I winced, not at the shout, but the expression on his face. He looked horrified. “How could you publish things like that? You know the risk!”

I grabbed him up and covered his mouth, our foreheads pressed together. “My readers think that it is nothing but a work of fiction.” I said, trying to keep my voice soft and soothing. When I pulled back to get a better look at him, Holmes’ eyes were overbright with unshed tears, and his lips were in a tight line. In that moment, I saw it all. The overzealous description. The comment. The suggestion. The accusation, the pointed fingers, then the inevitable investigation. Worse, Holmes and I both knew how it would play out. An older doctor and campaigner, a youth with no official means of employment, it wouldn’t be difficult to guess where the blame would fall. And I would allow it, if it meant protecting my Holmes from shame and attack.

I didn’t bother lying to him or making promises I knew I wouldn’t be able to keep. Instead, I stroked my fingers over his cheek and pinched the sharp point of his chin. “You must admit, you are worth the risk though.”

Holmes looked torn between fluttering his lashes bashfully, and stomping down on my foot. He settled for scowling over my shoulder. “Yes, Doctor.” he mumbled in what I’m sure was a conscious reminder of what brought us here in the first place.

Chastened, I removed my own clothes and set them aside. Normally I would have remained dressed during his care, but in the bathhouse it wasn’t realistic. The hot, steam-heavy air made my hair curl around my forehead and ears, and limbered up the cane I assembled and set aside. From the Gladstone, I pulled out the symbol that marked the beginning of our session.

I had picked it up by chance while running an errand for our landlady. Tucked into a box of sewing pins, threads, and other notions was a length of plush velvet trimming ribbon. It was a yard long, and the shopgirl included it with my other purchases after a wink. To the middle, I had affixed my service badge so it sat like a cameo when I wound the ribbon around Holmes’ neck.

It really was long and sinewy.

Once the ribbon was in place, Holmes relaxed. He sank happily to his knees. With the black ties of the choker trailing down the lean expanse of his back, he was beautiful and graceful, like a Degas had danced off the canvas.

I paced around him with a long cord in my hand, moving behind his back. Taking his wrists in my hand, I lashed them together, one crossed over the other against the base of his neck. My fingers slid into his hair, loosening it out of the slicked back style he normally wore it in. Tangled in my fist, it made it easy to pull his head back to present his lips for my kiss. “You are worth it to me.” I muttered against his mouth before I straightened. I took up the cane and tapped it lightly on the back of each thigh. “Five strikes,” My tone shifted, signalling the start. “I expect silence from you.”

The first blow had barely glanced over his skin when Holmes cried out.

“I said silence.” I chided and set the cane down. “You understand what happens when you disobey.”

“I am punished.” he smiled, his eyes drifting nearly closed.

My mouth twitched in annoyance at that smile. “I will give you another chance.”

This time, it was just the whistle of the cane through the air that brought out his voice. He gasped my name and looked up at me, his eyes glinting.

“Oh, for…” I tightened my grip on the cane and wrapped my free hand around his wrists to haul him back up to his feet. “You know better than this. You _ask_ for things when you want them. You don’t trick me into giving them to you.”

A massage table stood in the room, but I am sure it had never been used for anything so innocent. I bent Holmes over it, his hips high with his chest down to the padded table.

“But tricking you is so much more effective.” he pointed out, twisting just enough so he could bat his long lashes at me. “You hold back less when I’ve irritated you.”

I slid my nails over his scalp. “I will let go as much as you need, if you just ask for it.”

His lip stuck out in a scowl for a moment before he finally relented and relaxed against the table. He rose up on his toes to present for me. “Please, Watson. Please, I want to feel you for days after.”

“See, that wasn’t difficult.” I smiled and gave his rump a quick pat before the cane sang in the air to snap against his skin.

From his shoulders to his calves, the blows fell in no pattern. One would strike across his shoulder blades while the next came down on the back of one thigh. They never fell in the same spot twice, and one would be a feather light kiss, the next a stinging bite that left a red welt behind.

Before long, Holmes was boneless and limp against the table, but his erection was swinging freely between his parted thighs. Reaching between his legs, I gripped the base between my thumb and forefinger, making it bob and wave for more.

I pressed close, my chest moulded to his back so my lips were between his shoulders. I bit down hard, sucking a deep livid mark onto his striped skin. Holmes bucked under me, trying to press his slim rump against my erection. My teeth left a perfect imprint on his flesh, with a bruise in the centre. I grinned down at my handiwork before placing a second then a third and a fourth across his shoulders and down his spine. Each time I sucked, I squeezed my fist tighter and tighter on him until I could feel him swelling, the veins standing out plump and defined.

He was beginning to twist and squirm, and I could tell he was working so hard for me to keep from releasing. His toes made soft sounds on the tile and the table squeaked and shifted under our weight.

On the back of his neck just below the bow of his collar I bit down, opening my fist at the same moment. Almost immediately, Holmes went rigid and sobbed out my name. I felt the shudder of his muscles as his orgasm struck him like a blow. He fisted his fingers into his hair to give himself something to hold until the aftershocks began to ease off.

I put my hand to the back of his head to hold him still and straightened. Rising up on my toes, I used the slender mounds of his arse to rut myself to completion. My seed splashed across his back, trickling over his side. He was painted in glossy white over the stripes of red and spots of purple.

“Do you hear me, my darling?”

Holmes mumbled some nonsense but nodded while I unlashed his wrists. His twisting had left him with bracelets of worn red skin.

I left him covered in my semen as I helped him into his clothes. The shift clung to his skin. When he realised that he would carry me around on himself for the rest of the night, Holmes sagged against me and wept silently for several minutes. I held him through the cathartic release, stroking and combing his hair and murmuring praise.

I wouldn’t be able to hold his hand in public, but it was a much more visceral claim on him.

An hour later, in the cool evening air, with his hand tucked into the curve of my elbow, Holmes tipped his face up to the sky and smiled. “You are worth it too, you know.”


End file.
